Being Callen
by NotARedhead
Summary: A group of oneshots and drabbles, all from Callen's POV. No real throughline or timeframe, just me getting into Callen's head. I have no idea how many there will be. Standard disclaimer. All hail Shane Brennan.
1. The Dream

**The Dream**

He had had the strangest dream.

He couldn't remember all of it, but it kind of felt like a cross between a children's book and a really bad CGI film. One of those straight-to-video releases that Eric was always complaining about.

He was the ringmaster of a Russian circus. There was a huge and imposing-looking dancing black bear who was being handled by a small woman dressed as a countess. There was a mind-reader dressed in a cape with a short wizard's beard. There was a female daredevil motorcycle rider. And a very real-looking talking robot who could walk, talk and compute at the same time, while projecting video out of his forehead. In the background was an invisible man who he did not know but felt as though he would, soon. He stood in the middle of it all, directing the action, until the band played a series of drum beats in a jarring rat-a-tat-tat rhythm that ended the performance.

When he woke up, it was painful. He tried to focus on the figures in the window and saw the circus performers again. All with lines of worry across their faces. He wanted to get back in the ring.

But he sensed that the dream was not over and so he closed his eyes again, listening to the repetitive beeping rhythm of the calliope.


	2. Nunchucks

**Nunchucks**

He had taken Sam to the Emergency Room six times. Two gunshots, one really deep cut from a piece of razor wire that someone had turned into a weapon, two moderate concussions and the nunchuck incident.

He'd been skeptical when Sam said that he'd learned to use nunchucks when he was in Asia as a SEAL. Seriously … Sam wasn't exactly the type of guy you imagined having the patience to learn the finer points of Japanese martial arts. But, of course, once he'd laughed, Sam was determined to show his prowess with the _nunchaku, _as Sam condescendingly told him was the actual Japanese pronunciation. He had to admit that he was impressed as Sam started. I mean … Sam was no Bruce Lee, but he was holding his own. Until they heard Hetty coming up the hall. That one momentary lapse of attention was all it took.

Come to think of it, he had really only taken Sam to the Emergency Room five times. Two gunshots, one really deep cut from a piece of razor wire that someone had turned into a weapon, and two moderate concussions … one of which was directly related to the nunchuck incident.

Which meant that Sam could call in one more trip to the ER. Because, as they all knew, six was the limit. After that, you were on your own.


	3. Double Double

**Double Double**

He'd had his first Double Double about five days after moving to LA. He was on a stake-out with Sam – their first one as a team. It was 4am, there was nothing going on at the warehouse they were watching, and they'd gotten clearance to grab something to eat.

He'd moved a lot as a kid, and there were few constants in his life. But it turned out that no matter where he moved … no matter what city, town or state he ended up in … there was a McDonald's there. The first thing he did every time he got to a new place was to find the nearest McDonald's. Because he knew that there'd be something regular that he could count on. No matter what was going on in the rest of your life, a Big Mac was a Big Mac was a Big Mac.

He'd done the same thing with all of his overseas missions. No matter where you ended up – from the Baltic to Belize – there'd be a McDonald's. A Big Mac made of yak meat wasn't necessarily the same as the American version, but you could still count on there being something familiar.

So when they got clearance to eat, he headed for the Golden Arches. And Sam yelled at him. Honest-to-God yelled. Sam told him to get the hell out of the driver's seat and then Sam got behind the wheel. They drove to a place called In-N-Out and ordered something called a Double Double Animal Style. They went back to their stakeout spot and Sam tossed him a cardboard box filled with a messy pile of meat, fries, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions and bun.

He'd looked at the conglomeration of food in front of him, and then at Sam, who was looking at him as if to say, "What are you waiting for, fool?" (He'd been silently imagining that Sam was 'Mr. T' since they'd met a week before.) He did his best to reassemble the burger and took a messy first bite. Even with spread running down his chin and lettuce falling back into the box, he was an instant convert.

He plowed through his Double Double as Sam demolished a 4x3.

They had a very hard time explaining to Hetty why the guy in the warehouse got away.


	4. Tea

**Tea**

He actually liked tea. It wasn't as manly as coffee – and definitely not anywhere near as potent as that dark brown sludge that Gibbs drank. In fact, he wasn't entirely certain that he could ever tell Gibbs that he drank tea. He would get that look … that Gibbs "I thought I knew you, but clearly I don't" look … and the gunny would never trust him again.

He'd started drinking tea in Russia, where the coffee was so bad that people used to claim the beans were actually grown at Chernobyl. There was a jasmine tea that he preferred, along with a Russian Caravan blend that could, when properly made, knock you out of your chair. That Russian tea background made it hard to accept anything else, even Hetty's tea made via her meticulous tea-making ceremony. Even with all the steps and the warming of the cups and the measuring of the tea and the use of the special tea set, she still made British tea. That's really why he had gone back to the basic tea bag. If he couldn't have Russian tea – made the Russian way, with _zavarka_ and _kipyatok_ – then it might as well be tea bags.

But he'd been converted. Because, as with most things, Hetty had been right. He was tasting the paper.


	5. The Antidote

**The Antidote**

Antidotes have a dark side. No one ever tells you that. Your partner tackles you into a koi pond, jabs a needle in your arm and then tells you "I just saved your life". And you're supposed to be grateful. But no one ever stops to remember that the antidote to the LD50 bioweapon was _experimental_. As in, _not fully tested, vetted or approved_.

He got home that night after the chase and the water and the needle and the fish, and his arm was throbbing. He had a fever and the chills, and it was all he could do to wrap himself in a blanket and crawl into bed. An hour later, he felt sick enough to throw up, nearly getting a concussion in the process, since the dizziness made it hard to negotiate the too-quick trip from bed to bathroom. By this time, the injection site was a lovely color of yellow-purple and had grown to the circumference of a hockey puck. His fingers were swollen and stiff. He was sweating and nauseous and his head felt heavy and he couldn't focus. He toyed with calling Sam because there was no way in hell he was going to be able to drive himself to the emergency room. Then he toyed with calling 911, to avoid calling Sam. But he couldn't fathom navigating the fuzziness that was his apartment to find his phone, which had fallen who knows where when he had come home and crawled into bed.

So he dug around in his bathroom, found a handful of Tylenol and decided to try and sleep it off. If it killed him, it killed him. He was fairly certain that being dead would not be all that much worse than how he felt now. And there was a bit of smug satisfaction knowing that the antidote people would be somewhat embarrassed at their mistake.

The next morning, the throbbing was almost gone, his head was almost clear, and he felt fairly close to normal. He still had a nasty bruise on his arm, but really no worse than any others he'd ever had. It did kind of feel like he was moving in slow motion for the first hour or so, which meant that he was nearly fifteen minutes late picking up Sam for work. Something that he heard about all the way there and then had no luck explaining away. Because he was not going to tell Sam that he got knocked on his butt by a life-saving experimental antidote. Although next time he might just take his chances with the poison.

And people wonder why he hates needles.


	6. Radio

**Radio**

He'd been on the radio once, during one of his very first undercover ops. He was Bobby Bob in the Morning, the AM drive-time DJ on a now-defunct talk radio station in Chicago. Which was really kind of funny, if you thought about it, since he was neither a morning person nor a talker. But there he was, living in Winnetka and spending 5am until 9am listening to people gripe, complain, yell, beg forgiveness, curse politicians, and offer up opinions on everything from taxes to sea turtles to whether or not the Bears would ever be in the Super Bowl again.

He'd been tracking a pretty normal garden-variety Chicago mobster who also happened to be a first-class totally unbalanced conspiracy theorist. The kind of guy who had a cache of semi-automatic weapons in his basement and newspaper clippings covering every inch of wall space in a secret den in the attic. The guy would call in every single morning, with calm and rational-sounding explanations of why there were more planes taking off from O'Hare lately or why there were two floors of the Sears Tower closed for maintenance. The guy would start off with plausible explanations, but always veer off course into some fantastical subplot that involved the government or everyone with a last name that started with "S" or everyone wearing orange today. The guy always stopped just short of making actual threats or calling others to arms. Except once.

The day the guy called and said that he was planning on taking hostages at the Navy Pier, DJ Bobby Bob had alerted the authorities and then kept the guy on the line for over three hours while the police and the FBI did the paperwork, got the warrants, and finally nabbed the guy, who had been calling from a cell phone in an old dark green Volkswagen van stuffed to the ceiling with guns, ammo and explosives.

DJ Bobby Bob retired after that, and he was hounded with morning show interview requests. The local FBI office practically ordered him to do a press conference, and even Oprah had called to do a "Chicago Hero" story. He hated doing press conferences, and he'd turned them all down.

He had a face better suited for radio.


	7. Petrov

**Petrov**

Petrov's ass always needed saving. It was one of those certainties. Death, taxes, and Petrov's ass. For a highly trained, highly recommended Russian double agent, Petrov had a habit of getting into trouble. Call it impulsiveness. Or a constant and annoying need to one-up everyone else. Gibbs thought it was just a cover. But in reality, Petrov didn't think before doing something. When you're working in international espionage, you have to think the entire plan through before you take Step One. You have to look at it as a chess game. And Petrov never thought it through first. Petrov just took off and left everyone else in the dust.

This, of course, led to many many ass-saving missions that had to be thrown together, often with less than a day to plan. He and Gibbs had spent many late hours poring over schematics and photographs, listening to wiretaps, and tracking Petrov's moves, only to end up hurt or shot or trapped while Petrov got away without a scratch.

Yes … Petrov's ass always needed saving.

But it was a cute ass, and so they didn't really mind. And, like every other red-headed, gorgeous, deadly female Russian double agent they met that year, Petrov chose Gibbs. They all always chose Gibbs.

It was enough to make a guy give up the international spy game altogether.


	8. ID

_Author's Note: This is a re-post, to correct some small errors that you probably didn't notice, but are driving me nuts! :)_

* * *

**I.D.**

He had 187 separate identities, all kept neat and tidy in a series of safe deposit boxes stored in the Archive Room and managed by Hetty. Passports, drivers licenses, credit cards, wallets, watches, gym memberships, business cards, museum passes, family photos, military IDs, golf course memberships, pawn shop tickets, and the occasional pair of glasses or an earring. Each identity carefully placed in a plastic archive bag, sealed and signed, and then put into its own box with its own lock so that no two identities could ever be switched or misplaced or swapped out by mistake.

There were Russians, certainly, but also Serbs, Germans, Latinos, Australians, Brits, Canadians, Greeks, Irishmen, and a rich oil sheik from Dubai. There was the coffee bar owner in Amsterdam, the water park executive in Bahrain and the poacher from South Africa. And all the Americans, of course. One from every state except for Oklahoma. He didn't know why.

And that didn't include the one-offs. The people he was when he and Sam or he and Kenzie needed a quick cover story. It didn't include the Ernies or Gordos or nameless landlords or bartenders that he only played once. If you started counting those identities, the number would be considerably higher.

There were people he really loved being, like Tony Z, who got to put $1400 of sushi on his American Express Black Card at Matsuhisha in Beverly Hills, and Jason Tedrow, who had a normal family life and a nice little bungalow in a nice residential neighborhood when he wasn't stealing money from the Navy.

There were the people he didn't like at all, like the beach bum with no last name who befriended drug dealers and pedophiles while trying to close up a human trafficking ring. Or Bob Walinski, who spent every day hauling garbage and dead fish while trying to infiltrate a gang of thieves on the seedier side of the Port of Los Angeles.

But there they all were. His identities. Slices from his life. Cataloged, alphabetized and neatly packaged, waiting for the next time they'd be needed.

Some people kept scrapbooks. He kept safe deposit boxes.

He did wonder, though, how many obituaries would run on the day he died.


	9. Disneyland

**Disneyland **

Kenzie hated Disneyland. She told everyone that it was because she didn't like grown men in furry suits, but it was really because of an unfortunate incident on the Autopia ride. After her third speed warning, she was asked to leave the ride. After complaining loudly that the cars didn't go fast enough to even simulate a Grand Prix race and then calling into question the masculinity of two nearby chipmunks in front of a group of young children, she was escorted from the park. Ever since then, he'd gone to Disneyland alone.

He'd been to Disneyland a lot. Never as a child; all as an adult. He enjoyed escaping into the fantasy of the place – being a pirate … astronaut … Davy Crockett … Jedi warrior. "Never Prince Charming?" Hetty asked him once. "Not unless Prince Charming is slaying a dragon," was his response.

He'd wander through the park, eating a seriously mutated giant of a turkey leg and drinking an iced tea the size of a retention pond. He'd shop for snowglobes for Hetty (because you never knew when you'd need something to bribe your way out of a compliance class or apologize for a set-in blood stain on a designer shirt) and then he'd head over to Tomorrowland to see Stitch. Stitch … the alien orphan who didn't have a family until Lilo came along. He kind of identified with Stitch.

Sam? Sam was Baloo. Or maybe Buzz Lightyear. Definitely Buzz Lightyear.

Kenzie … Jasmine. Although he'd have to see her in a pair of harem pants and a veil to be sure. Wasn't likely, so he assigned her Jessie from _Toy Story_ instead.

Eric was Pluto.

Nate was Ludwig von Drake.

Dom was Bashful.

And Hetty was a cross between Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and Mrs. Potts from _Beauty & the Beast_.

He hadn't placed Gibbs yet in the character pantheon. Grumpy was the clear choice, but that was too easy, somehow.

Kenzie was just wrong to hate Disneyland. He promised himself that he'd talk to the Security guys and see if they'd let her back in again one day. He'd do that.

Right after he got off Space Mountain.


	10. Picking Locks

**Picking Locks**

Locking a door is harder than unlocking one. He'd learned that early. People were always amazed at his lock-picking skills – at how quickly he could open a door. He learned when he was 9. He could get out of any house, office, classroom, closet, cellar, storeroom, interrogation room or dormitory that he'd ever been locked into. Not that they were all places he necessarily _wanted_ to get out of. But it was fun. He was good at it. Opening a locked door was easy.

The trick was locking the door behind you, if you didn't have the key and someone had messed with the doorknob. _That's_ when you had to get creative. Most guys who can pick locks know how to open doors. He knew how to lock them. That was unique.

He'd figured it out over the course of five days when he was 14. "You can't hide from us," the boys at the group home would say. "These doors don't have locks." And for four and a half days, he couldn't hide. Because the doors didn't have locks. None of the doors did, even in the bathroom. The people running the home didn't want the boys to be able to lock themselves in. But he had learned how. He had locked the door behind him and sat on the side of the bathtub and laughed as the other boys cursed and yelled. By the time the house parents came and took the door off its hinges to get in, he was out the window and long gone.

That was the last place he'd ever stayed as a guest of the foster system. Because, really, once you could lock the door behind you, you could stay anywhere.


	11. Traffic School

**Traffic School**

He hadn't liked being Walinski since the very beginning. It had been a cruddy assignment, tracking a Navy thief who was hiding drugs in shipping containers filled with submarine garbage. He had worked the docks for six weeks getting enough evidence to shut the operation down. He came home every single night smelling like garbage and fish and the sour sea water that slagged against the seawalls. He'd had more than one seagull christen him as only a seagull can. He'd walked in pelican regurgitation and sat in something that he was unable to identify but smelled worse than almost anything he could remember. And he'd been in some pretty slimy places.

He'd hated Walinski's squalid little apartment by the port, with its broken freezer and roach-infested bathroom. He lived for the half-days on Thursday when he told his boss and his nosy landlord that he was visiting his parole officer but really was checking in with the rest of the team.

He always drove very fast going to the office on those days. He would drive as far away from the docks as he could drive and still make it to Sam's on time to pick him up. Sometimes he drove too far, just enjoying the freedom, and then he'd have to drive even faster to get to Sam's. Walinski got his share of traffic citations.

He would spend six glorious hours at the office, drinking jasmine tea and eating real food and not hauling trash and not slipping on sea gull droppings. And then he would drive back to Walinski's apartment and begin being Walinski again. He always drove very slowly going back to the docks on those days.

He'd hated being Walinski, and as soon as the op was complete, he'd burned Walinski's clothes because even Hetty had agreed that the smell just would never come out. He'd said goodbye to Walinski and walked away from the apartment without ever looking back.

Which is why sitting in Traffic School, satisfying a speeding ticket for Bob Walinski, was even worse than it would have been normally. It was, in a word, torture. Torture as sure as any torture he'd ever endured. He'd compared it to the Libyans on the trawler, but that wasn't really fair.

As he mentally prepared to sit through another four hours of comedy traffic school puppet shows, he reminded himself to apologize to the Libyans.


	12. The Streets

**The Streets**

He liked the streets … driving the streets. He was not a big fan of the freeway. If he was going to be stuck in traffic for 45 minutes, he'd rather have something interesting to look at.

Sure, you got the vistas of Southern California from the elevated freeways. You could see the mountains, the ocean sometimes. There were studios and subdivisions, towering buildings and the Hollywood sign. You could see it all from the freeways. Unless the freeways were up to speed, in which case you zipped by it all so fast that you wouldn't have noticed what was going on unless something was on fire. And if the freeways were stopped, there was no way to get off the freeway until you hit the next exit. No jockeying your car to the next corner and taking a right, hoping for better luck the next block down. He didn't like the freeways.

Except maybe the PCH, since it was open-ended ocean on one side, and even if you were flat out stopped you could see beyond the city's borders.

But he preferred the streets. There was nothing better than driving down Olvera Street in the springtime or along Carroll Avenue at Christmas, when the Victorians were decked out for the holidays. He'd even been known to take a detour over to South Central just to see the Watts Towers or to Stan's on Weyburn for donuts in the morning. You couldn't do any of that from the freeways. On the freeways, you were a slave to concrete.

On the streets you saw neighborhoods and people. You discovered cafes and diners, warehouses and electronics stores. You found apartments, laundromats and locksmiths. You could look down alleys and around corners. You found stake-out locations and hidden escape routes. While you were stuck at the light, you could watch people. You could notice things. He knew Chinatown and Little Tokyo, Echo Park and Filipinotown. He spent hours driving through those neighborhoods and more, learning the speech patterns, seeing the people and watching how they lived day-to-day. Call it research.

And if none of that was good enough for you, there was this.

They hadn't lost Dom on the freeways. They had lost Dom on the streets. And he would find Dom on the streets.

He looked. Every day.


	13. Museums

**Museums**

He enjoyed museums. Offering to take Hetty to the Rembrandt exhibit at the Norton Simon wasn't just a whim. He'd been planning to go anyway, and it would be more enjoyable with Hetty's company. Hell … she'd probably met Rembrandt. Or posed for him. Or was his love child with Georgia O'Keefe. Anything was possible with Hetty.

And regardless of Hetty's dismissal, museums _were_ good places to pick up chicks. He never had, but he could not deny that they provided many opportunities. He preferred to be the brooding art critic type who disappeared into the middle of a room of art and let the paintings tell their stories unencumbered by the relationship dance. He liked Impressionism. Things that almost look like what they are, but aren't quite.

He'd been drawing since he was a little kid. It was a favorite technique of every social worker he'd ever met. They'd plop him down with paper and crayons – colored pencils when he got older – and tell him to draw a picture. "Draw us a picture of your feelings." "Draw us a picture of your family." "Draw us a picture of what you're scared of." "Draw us a picture of what happened that night." "Draw us a picture."

Never mind that he was more than willing to _tell_ them what they wanted to know. I guess they all figured that if he told them things, he could possibly lie or leave things out or manipulate the facts. But if he drew them a picture, that would be truth.

He got pretty good. He had his "happy picture", his "sad picture", his "I miss my family" picture, and his "there's a bully at school" picture. He drew them pretty much interchangeably, depending on how intense or motherly the social worker was.

If it was a social worker he liked, they got the "lonely" picture, with lots of dark blues and light greys … heavy clouds with big falling raindrops … a little stick kid with his little stick dog and no umbrella. It was guaranteed to get him a lot of attention and almost always ice cream.

If it was someone who was just a little too certain that he was either deeply depressed or totally incorrigible, they got the picture with a group of stick kids, all smiling, playing baseball on a summer day. Bright primary colors, sunshine and flowers. That was his "well adjusted" picture. It usually got him a "SATISFACTORY" stamp in his file and they'd let him go back to whatever he'd been doing.

He wonders, sometimes, what he would draw now if someone – Nate – sat him down with paper and pencil and told him to "draw us a picture". He suspects he'd surprise everyone. Because as much as they might expect the "loney" picture or the "good guys vs. bad guys" picture, they're much more likely to get the "happy family" picture.

Because, as he'd told Gibbs, he bordered on happy some days. And as he'd told Macy, he had a family now.


	14. Karaoke

**Karaoke**

He did a hell of a Springsteen. Seriously. Not the expected "Born in the USA" or "Glory Days". He prefers the slightly less popular (but still likely to be on any decent bar's karaoke list) tunes like "Born to Run" and "Thunder Road." He can really get a crowd going, once he's on stage. Get the right crowd and you've got lighters popping on all the way to the back row.

He's not a particularly big Springsteen fan, actually. He's really more into jazz and instrumentals. But you can't really do Coltrane's "Giant Steps" in a karaoke bar. So he sings along to Springsteen … a little Willie Nelson sometimes. The kind of singers that you can sort of talk your way through without really having to be able to sing. He'd leave the big-voice singers to Sam and Hetty.

In truth, he's really more of an instrumentals guy.

In fact, for a guy without a television set, he spends a disproportionate amount of time playing Guitar Hero.

He'd gotten hooked at Eric's house one Thanksgiving, when everyone was taking turns between eating, cooking, football and play-by-play reenactments of floats from the Macy's parade. He'd since picked up two portable versions and the mobile phone app. He preferred the Van Halen version, and was particularly adept at Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

Come to think of it, it's where he'd learned to do his Springsteen.

And suddenly it occurred to him that he had the perfect rock star name. Like "Springsteen", "Van Halen" and "Morrisey" … "Sting" and "Prince", rock was one place where no one cares what your first name is, and where you can make up any name you want.

"Callen." It was perfect. Easy to remember, easy to spell and definitely chantable. He'd have to try that the next time they went to karaoke. A little "Thunder Road" with the chant rising from the back of the room.

"Cal-LEN! Cal-LEN! Cal-LEN!" Heh. Sam would be so jealous.


	15. Hetty

**Hetty**

He had never known anyone like Hetty.

He'd first met Hetty years ago, after his first bout with the Russians, working for various covert operations managed by the FBI and CIA. She was the one who had recruited him for NCIS, on Gibbs' recommendation.

The interview process had been brutal.

And then … she'd disappeared. He learned later that she'd been monitoring his career at NCIS – checking in on him often. She had, occasionally and anonymously, greased the wheels a bit higher up to get him the equipment or personnel he needed for particularly difficult missions. Once, she managed to get a handful of SEALs to – as Sam would later relate, ad nauseum – "save the day when your asses were pretty much unsavable". He had to admit that having those SEALs appear from the ocean as if by magic was a very very welcome sight. But had he known that he'd have to listen to reenactments of the mission pretty much 24/7 from his new partner a year or so later, he'd have taken his chances with the Cubans.

Hetty had always been there – like a tiny, powerful Guardian Angel.

He asked her once why she came back.

"I worry."


	16. Macy

**Macy**

He never did find out what the problem was between Macy and Gibbs. He'd actually asked Gibbs, when Gibbs called to find out how his recovery was going. And, despite Macy's warning, Gibbs did not "sit him on his ass". Gibbs had simply said, "We worked it out, and it's not important." He didn't believe that it wasn't important – after all, 18 years is a long time to hold a grudge – but he'd trusted that Gibbs had told the truth and that it had, indeed, been worked out.

Macy was, for all intents and purposes, a female equivalent of Gibbs. Both of them had rules, and their rulebooks were remarkably similar. Things like working as a team (#15), never being unreachable (#3) and not believing in coincidences (#39) were sacred to both of them. And really … neither of them ever followed Rule #11 ("When the job is done, walk away."). If they had, the whole 18-year stand-off would have been moot.

He'd first met Macy early in his NCIS career. He'd been back in the States for less than three weeks after a series of small clean-up missions in South America and she was the leader of a task force to help infiltrate South American drug cartels. He was brought in as a "content expert". He struggled to prove himself, and the two of them fought often. Macy didn't find it easy to be told she was wrong, and it took a lot of convincing to show her that the intel she was getting from her sources was actually misinformation being planted by Colombian double agents.

He would have preferred if she'd just believed him at the outset – it would have saved him a few broken ribs, a gunshot wound to the side that just barely missed his liver, and a couple of rounds of "How Many Times Can We Hit You Before You Pass Out?", which seemed to be a popular game among his captors.

Macy had offered to quit after he'd been pulled out – alive but in pretty marginal shape – but he'd told her that was silly. "Just believe me next time," he'd said.

And she had, ever since.


	17. Sick Leave

**Sick Leave**

Everyone kept reminding him that he had another month of leave coming after being gunned down on the corner, but he came back anyway.

Being on sick leave can be brutal. People think it's all lying around, resting, chicken soup and flower arrangements. It's not.

First, there's the pain. You're working through the pain from the gunshots and the surgeries and the coming off the meds. You learn which pains and twinges and cramps and kinks will go away and which will be there forever. And you learn to deal with the ones that will be there forever … you learn to assimilate them into the others that are there forever.

Second, there are the questions. "How are you feeling?" "How are you sleeping?" "Are you having nightmares?" "What hurts?" "Do you need more painkillers?" "Are you sure you're ready to leave the hospital?" "Do you have someone to take care of you?" "Are you eating?" "Have you recovered full use of your arm yet?" "How far did you run today?" "Do you think you'll come back?" "Do you think you'll retire?" So many questions.

Third, there's the boredom. Sleeping in is fun for a few days. Maybe a week. The beach is great for a week. Maybe two. Having no schedule, no cases, no paperwork … fun for a while. But all it really does is remind you that there are all of these other people who are up and about and fit and able. And you're not.

And so finally, there's the depression. After the first month or so, people stop coming by. They know you're recovering and they see the you they used to know before the "incident." They see your smirk and hear that lilt of humor and sarcasm in your voice and see your quick reflexes when they toss you a beer. And they see you actually having a beer, which means you're not taking pain killers any more. So they think you're back to normal. And so they go back to normal too. Except that you're not back to normal yet. Now you're just alone.

And so you go back a month early. Because sometimes, the only way to "get well" is to live.


	18. Messages

**Messages**

He always had messages in his In Box when he came to work, a fact that he saw as fairly remarkable, as he seldom returned calls, nor did he leave messages of his own. But every day, without fail, he would go to his desk, drop his duffel, and pick up the stack of pink message slips waiting for him.

The funniest part was that most of the messages weren't for him at all. Not really. They were for some alias he'd had last week or last year or five years ago. Sometimes he couldn't even remember the case, much less the contact.

_**

* * *

**_

For: Vic

_**From: (name not left)**_

_**Message: That little blonde chicklet is waiting for you. Dude, you need to get back to the waves.**_

* * *

Not a clue. On the guy or the "blonde chicklet."

Sometimes Hetty would editorialize.

* * *

_**For: Chad Tarrington**_

_**From: Studio 580**_

_**Message: Overdue for color and blow-dry.**_

_**From Hetty: I don't believe we will need this cover again, Mr. Callen. If you decide to maintain your 'do', you will be responsible for the cost out of pocket. H**_

* * *

Toss it. Chad Tarrington was a rabid metrosexual guy who he'd had to play for an exhausting three weeks in Brentwood. He'd spent more time maintaining Chad's look – via manicures, hair styling sessions, time at the gym and visits to the dry cleaners – than he did solving the crime. Never again.

* * *

_**For: Rick Morgan**_

_**From: Callie**_

_**Message: Call me!**_

_**From Hetty: Please note that the phone message was actually much longer and, shall we say, much more explicit than the message above. I paraphrased. H**_

* * *

He might hang onto that one.

* * *

_**For: Danny B.**_

_**From: (no name left)**_

_**Message: My brother and I will be out in exactly eight days. If the money isn't where we left it, you're a dead man. Don't think we can't find you.**_

_**From Hetty: We believe this was a wrong number, but felt you should see it anyway, just in case. H**_

* * *

_**For: Lukas**_

_**From: Niklas**_

_**Message: Wir haben einen anderen Job für Sie, wenn Sie in der Stadt sein werden. Sie haben meine Kontaktinformationen. Benennen Sie, wenn Sie ankommen.**_

_**From Hetty: We have made contact. More info forthcoming. H**_

* * *

Sometimes the messages reminded him about the less pleasant aspects of his job.

* * *

_**For: Charlie**_

_**From: Karen**_

_**Message: I hope this is still a valid number. I wanted you to know that I had to put the dog down. I know he was really more yours than mine, but when you left, I just couldn't get rid of him. He went peacefully. Just thought you deserved to know.**_

* * *

_**For: Alex**_

_**From: Boris**_

_**Message: Sergey is dead. He never talked.**_

_**From Hetty: SecNav sent a representative to the funeral. They will brief you on Thursday. H**_

* * *

_**For: Bob Dreager**_

_**From: Alice Claridge**_

_**Message: When you left, you broke Laura's heart. I just thought you might want to know that she's disappeared. If you ever cared for her at all, please help us find her. You're our last hope.**_

* * *

_**For: Bob Dreager**_

_**From: Alice Claridge**_

_**Message: The police have stopped looking, and we don't know what else to do. She's our only daughter. Please call.**_

* * *

_**For: Bob Dreager**_

_**From: Alice Claridge**_

_**Message: Please.**_

* * *

He walked those up to Hetty to forward to the missing person's squad in San Diego, marked "High Priority / Special Favor." San Diego owed him one.

* * *

_**For: Adam**_

_**From: Terri**_

_**Message: Go to hell.**_

* * *

That one, he'd have to research.

And then, occasionally, there would be a message that actually made him smile.

* * *

_**For: Callen**_

_**From: Gibbs**_

_**Message: Boat's done. Beer's cold. Petrov says hello.**_

* * *

He'd laughed out loud at that one.

Every day he'd walk into the office, drop his bag, and pick up his messages. Same drill … different day. People he kind of remembered, but not really. People he'd tried to forget, but not really. Story of his life.

But every so often, there'd be one that stood out.

* * *

_**For: Bob Dreager**_

_**From: Alice Claridge**_

_**Message: Laura is home. Thank you.**_


	19. Bullet Holes

**Bullet Holes**

He'd been shot five times. Well … this latest time, at least. If you counted all the bullet holes – the entrance wounds and the exit wounds – the total was 26.

The first time it happened, it came as a total surprise. He was working with a small covert unit in Asia when someone got skittish and took a shot at a noise that turned out to be a clump of snow hitting a branch. He'd jumped at the crack of the gun and ended up with a bullet in his side. His first through-and-through. It burned, he remembers noting, but didn't hurt nearly as much as he'd expected a gunshot to hurt. Turns out, that was partly due to adrenaline and partly due to where the bullet hit. He found out a few years later just how much pain a bullet could cause, particularly if you had to force yourself to stand up and run immediately after being shot. Twice.

He had a mental catalogue of the first eight times he'd been shot. Those eight injuries accounted for 11 bullet holes. He had a special affinity for gunshot #6 – that time in Russia – because he still carried most of that bullet around with him. Gibbs had done a quick patch job, and by the time they made it back to base two weeks later, the bullet had decided it liked living in that part of his thigh, so he just left it there. It caused him a little twinge when he was in a particularly damp climate. And it made going through airport security that much more interesting.

Counting the most recent barrage, he'd been shot a total of nine times (15 holes) since coming to OSP. Hetty had all the records chronicled by date, case, severity of wound, length of hospitalization and – of course – cost. She'd asked him once if it would be possible, in the future, to only take those bullet hits that would not warrant any time in the ICU. She'd even had him and Sam take a Military Emergency First Aid course normally given to medics shipping out to war zones. "If you can learn to adequately patch yourself up without resorting to expensive emergency room visits, even better," she'd said. Neither he nor Sam were 100% convinced she wasn't serious.

When he woke up in ICU about a week after he'd taken those five shots in that drive-by, he remembers thinking that Hetty would be mad at how much this was costing.

She actually took it quite well.


	20. Tequila

**Tequila**

The math was simple: "Hetty + mechanical bull + tequila = bar fight."

The first team outing was held before there was really even much of a team. He remembered it well.

It was just him, Hetty, Nate and Sullivan.

They'd gone to a country-western club. One of those places with a beautifully crafted oak bar where you could slide a beer from one end to the other without a snag. One of those places with a small stage and a big dance floor … with wagon wheel lighting fixtures and a mechanical bull in the back.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The next morning, he remembered two things – Nate ordering a bottle of tequila and Hetty being thrown by the mechanical bull. Together, these two events resulted in a bar fight that had required him to spend three hours in the Emergency Room getting a total of 36 stitches. Nate had hidden behind the bar and ended up with a few superficial cuts from broken glass. Sullivan had taken more than a few punches and had a shiner the size of a baseball the next morning. Hetty, predictably, emerged unscathed.

Unfortunately, no one could remember why the fight had started, other than that it was NOT their fault. They were certain of that. Mostly.

He seldom spoke of that team outing again except to warn others.

And he shuddered at the thought that a future assignment would land him in Mexico trading tequila shots with some drug cartel flunkie. Which is why the very first thing he'd learned to say in Spanish was "¿Usted tiene un toro mecánico?"

Because, really … better safe than sorry.


	21. Birthday Cards

**Birthday Cards**

He'd never gotten a birthday card.

He didn't really mind, even as a kid. It's not like he'd never had a birthday present. Or a birthday party. He'd had those. The group homes he lived in when he was between foster homes tended to make a big deal out of birthdays. There were birthday cakes, candles to blow out, ice cream, balloons, party hats and presents. Of course, you generally had to share your birthday with a few other kids, but cake and ice cream are cake and ice cream, no matter who you have to share with.

He actually didn't even know birthday cards existed until the year one of his foster mothers got upset because he hadn't made her one. His two foster brothers teased him mercilessly because he hadn't known what a birthday card was. They told him he was stupid for not knowing and made him feel bad for disappointing their mom. Which, in retrospect, he should have called them on, since neither of THEM had made her a birthday card either.

He generally forgot his birthday every year. Not out of self-pity or indifference; it's just that he usually had a lot of other things on his mind. It's hard to keep track of days (or months) when you're deep undercover. Every day is jam-packed with briefings, debriefings, meetings, missions and avoiding the people who are trying to capture or kill you. Seriously … put "remember birthday" up against "stay alive", and "stay alive" tends to win.

Not to mention that every cover includes a birthday, right there on the fake passport and fake birth certificate. And every cover had a _different_ birthday. It wasn't safe to repeat. Which meant that he had to really think to remember which birthday was his vs. which one belonged to Ivan or Todd or Chad or Lukas.

Finally, unless someone asks you when your birthday is, it's not like you can just spontaneously bring it up in conversation. "Yes, Director … we were able to disarm the bomb and release the hostages before the terrorists were able to blow up the airport and leave the country and, by the way, my birthday is next Thursday."

He somehow didn't see that working.


	22. Dom

**Dom**

He totally knew where he'd made his mistake.

For months he'd been looking. He'd watched and searched everywhere … on every street … around every corner. He knew Dom wasn't far. He knew Dom was still in LA. But he'd never thought that the people who were keeping Dom would be in the ratty old theater. He'd passed by that theater dozens of times and never looked twice. It had seemed too innocent, somehow. An old rundown movie theater – an historic building that dated back to 1911 and had once entertained thousands. Dom couldn't have been there.

For months he'd been following any lead. Even the ones that seemed particularly ridiculous. Even the ones the team didn't know about. Like the sighting of Dom at a Star Wars convention or the time someone swore they'd seen Dom walking off an airplane in Gaborone. He'd followed up every one of them.

For months he'd worked late into the night, learning Arabic, hoping to eke his way onto some Jihadist blog or message board, looking for any shred of intel. He'd been hoping to wander through the Arabic-language neighborhoods and sit in the Arabic-language restaurants and pick up bits of conversation, looking like a tourist trying out some exotic new food. He hadn't learned fast enough.

So many things he could have done differently. So many different ways this could have ended. But he totally knew where he'd made his mistake.

He'd promised – to himself, to Sam, to the team. He'd promised them he would find Dom.

He never promised them he would save Dom.

It would have made all the difference.


	23. Morse Code

**Morse Code**

He'd learned Morse Code in 5th grade, from a teacher who had a bit of an obsession with spies and spycraft. They'd learned Morse Code that year, along with how to make invisible ink, how to write simple alphabetic codes, how to hide messages, and how to create a disguise. They had done it all in the context of learning about the Cold War and about people like Mata Hari and the Navaho Code Talkers. It was the most fun he'd ever had in school.

The teacher had even given them all code names that year. His was "Oliver", after Dickens' orphan Oliver Twist. They all called the teacher "The Professor".

On the last day of school that year, he told The Professor that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to be a spy when he grew up. The Professor had laughed and told him that he should try to find a less dangerous profession.

A few months later, he heard that The Professor had left the school and moved on to another assignment. He'd gotten one card – written in code in invisible ink – about a year afterward. The card said, "Didn't want you to get out of practice. Wishing you well. The Professor." The postmark was from Virginia, but the card wasn't. He still had it somewhere.

He thought about The Professor often.

In fact, it was The Professor who was on his mind eighteen years later, in an interrogation room. He and Gibbs were sitting across the table from a ghost they'd finally found – a fugitive who had been running for at least a decade. They knew that the man had information on high-ranking members of the Russian mafia, and they suspected that their prisoner was a double – maybe triple – agent. As he sat, watching the man answer the questions Gibbs was asking, he was distracted by a light tap-tap-tap. The suspect was drumming his fingers on the table, seemingly out of nervousness, as questions were being asked and answered.

He listened more closely and was able to pick out a pattern.

.... . .-.. .-.. --- / --- .-.. .. ...- . .-.

And suddenly it all became clear. He smiled a small smile as he met the fugitive's eyes and they shared a moment of recognition. And then the questioning continued. Somewhere on the second day, the fugitive mysteriously disappeared.

They never saw him again.


	24. TootsiePops

**Tootsie-Pops**

He liked Tootsie-Pops.

It wasn't candy in general or an overdeveloped sweet tooth. And it wasn't an "always need to be eating" thing, like Brad Pitt in "Ocean's Eleven." It was Tootsie-Pops in particular.

They'd been the candy of choice for most of the doctors and social workers he saw as a kid – the thing you got when you'd completed your physical or finished up a therapy session. They usually ended up in the "trade" pile after Halloween trick-or-treating, and he discovered that he could get a handful of Tootsie-Pops for one full-sized Hershey bar. By the time he'd hit high school, "Kojak" reruns were all the rage, and Tootsie-Pops were a fashion accessory. Every cool kid had a Tootsie-Pop in his mouth during study hall.

The appeal of the Tootsie-Pop did not fade as he grew up. They were cheap and easy to carry, and you could bribe nearly anyone – from a Russian street kid to an Asian diplomat – with them, especially if you had a good mix of flavors available.

And really … if you thought about it, it was the perfect candy for him.

It wasn't obvious at first, but there was something hidden at the very center. And you had to be patient to get there.


	25. Bowling

**Bowling**

No bowling. On this, he and Sam agreed.

It had started out as a normal case. Follow the money. But the money, in this case, led to a bowling alley. One of those rock & roll bowling alleys that LA used to be famous for – with the music and light shows, people in costume, the whole nine yards.

The op came to a head on, of all things, Disco Night. They'd been undercover for over a week as two fun-loving locals looking to meet girls. They'd spent almost every night at the bowling alley, chatting up transplanted Jersey Girls, eating far too much junk food, and dressing up as everyone from Sinatra to Samson as they tried to figure out the connection between the owner of the alley and sailors who had been found dead with bowling shoe check tags in their pockets.

Hetty had had a field day planning wardrobe. Callen had never seen her so focused on period research as she was when she found out that the alley was having "Cleopatra Night." If he never had to wear gold lamé again, it would be too soon.

At no time during the op had they actually bowled – they were simply too caught up in trying to gather evidence and follow the trail they'd picked up back in the Navy Yard. They'd been able to beg off from the actual process of bowling for ten days.

But the final night was Disco Night. All things '70s. And they arrived just at the moment that teams were being chosen. There was no way to avoid it and maintain their relationships at the alley. No way to not participate and fade into the woodwork.

Which is how he ended up dressed as David Bowie – complete with a remarkably accurate (although incredibly itchy) wig – bowling a respectable low 200s game, while Sam bowled gutter ball after gutter ball after gutter ball dressed as Mr. T.

They never caught the guy.


	26. Lies

**Lies**

He was a very good liar. It came frighteningly easy to him – the ability to totally sell whatever it was he was telling someone. He could sell anything from, "I was here to pick up your brother's XBOX" to "I love you". And he could do it quickly and cleanly, with a smile on his face and sincerity in his eyes.

It hadn't always been that way. When he was a little kid – six or seven years old – he couldn't lie to save his life. Even something simple like, "I didn't spill the cereal" would be delivered with such anxiety that pretty much anyone could tell that he wasn't telling the truth.

He improved a great deal when he hit middle school. He'd hang around the fringes of the tough guys – the ones with some brains to match the brawn – and watched them as they totally snowed their teachers, their parents and other kids. He kept a mental list of things that worked. Look people in the eye. Don't look down. Don't talk too fast. Know what you're going to say before you start. Be confident. Believe what you're saying. Keep it simple, but use details.

By high school, he was world class. He could read people pretty well by then, and he could easily fabricate any story he thought they needed or wanted to hear.

That's not to say that he spent his whole life telling lies. But he knew when it was easier to produce a convincing, believable, comfortable lie instead of the flimsy, questionable, distressing truth. You'd be surprised how many people would eagerly accept a lie – even one they _knew_ was a lie – if it meant that they could sleep at night.

Yup. He was a very good liar. He could tell anyone anything and have it stick.

Except Sam.

And Hetty.

And Gibbs.


	27. The Couch

**The Couch**

It was far more comfortable than it looked, which is exactly the way he wanted it.

He loved the old leather couch at work. It was his couch. Everyone else used it, of course, but really … it was his. He knew it; the team knew it; Hetty knew it. She could mess with their work space all she wanted, but she knew better than to touch his couch.

The couch was there when he came back from medical leave after being shot. The story was that someone had found it at a consignment shop and Hetty had managed to barter the guy down to a ridiculously low price by promising the shop owner a full computer systems check performed by Eric one Saturday afternoon. Eric, in turn, received a gold star from Hetty and a free coffee table because the guy at the shop was so pleased with how much more efficiently the computer system worked.

He wasn't entirely certain if the story of the couch was true, but it seemed likely, and so he just accepted it.

He defaulted to the couch any time he was between apartments, which was frequently. Hetty mostly let him get away with it because as long as he was sleeping at OSP, she knew where to find him and that he was safe. For that, she'd overlook the fact that he earned a decent wage and was certainly capable of locating and paying for acceptable accommodations. She used to tell him she was going to start taking rent out of his paycheck.

He couldn't explain the appeal. He supposed that after 37 foster homes, twenty years of military and missions, and at least a dozen instances of his apartment of the moment being either ransacked or blown up – thereby requiring him to find temporary lodging – he'd slept on a lot of couches. He knew a good one when he saw it.

Which was, of course, why Hetty didn't mind. Because she knew a good one when she saw it too.


	28. Christmas

**Christmas**

For a guy who didn't really have a childhood, he liked Christmas a lot more than he should have.

If you were in a foster home, Christmas was a crap shoot. Sometimes you got treated just like the other kids – for better or for worse, he discovered. Some people didn't treat their _own_ kids well, never mind the fosters. Sometimes you watched while everyone else opened stuff, but you got nothing. (The foster parents believing that you wouldn't want to have to carry any more stuff around with you anyway.) And, of course, some families didn't celebrate Christmas at all. He'd had the gamut, and no two Christmases were alike when you were in foster homes.

If you were in a group home at Christmas, you generally had better luck. Some church group would show up with food and gifts, or the Salvation Army would host a massive kids' party. One year, some local philanthropist donated 37 bicycles to the boys and girls in the group home in Pasadena. He'd had that bicycle for six months before they placed him, and he had to leave the bike behind for the next kid. By the time he returned to the group home 17 days later, his bike was gone, now the property of someone older and tougher. That's how it went.

His favorite Christmas in recent memory was the second one he'd spent as part of the Office of Special Projects. Hetty – who had just come back to the group after a long and mysterious absence – insisted on Secret Santas. He was certain that she had rigged the draw, since he and Sam – who were not exactly falling into an easy partnership – ended up with each other. They found out, of course (because Eric never could keep a secret), and they both spent hours … days, really … trying to one-up each other with "the best gift ever".

In the end, it was a draw.

Hetty had made them stop when Disneyland called and wanted its reindeer back.


	29. Hobbies

**Hobbies**

He dabbled in things.

Furniture.

Golf.

Cars.

He could tell the difference between a real Gilbert Rohde writing desk and a cheap imitation. He had a 5.2 handicap. He could take apart a Humvee and put it back together. They weren't hobbies, exactly, but they were defined skill sets.

He'd learned about metal furniture during an operation in the antiques district of San Francisco. He'd gone undercover as a fence trying to move stolen antiques from wealthy families in Asia. He'd gotten hooked on Antiques Roadshow and started hitting garage sales looking for hidden treasures. He was most proud of the letter-opener he'd found for Hetty – a WW2-era metal piece made of a .498 calibre shell casing, with fleur de lis markings, winged handles and a raised rib blade. She still used it, although it was more ornament now than utilitarian office supply.

Golf he'd learned as a kid, when a county recreational department offered free golf lessons to teen boys at the Boys Club he practically lived at. He was pretty good and had what the instructor called "a natural swing." He still played any chance he got, and actually had used the game as physical therapy after a shoulder injury. Turns out his golf swing used the exact same muscles the doctors had been trying to strengthen. And he was a lot happier working through the pain alone over 18 holes than in a crowded PT room in a rehab center.

Taking apart cars? He'd just picked that up along the way with a lot of trial and error. But you'd be surprised how much you can learn when you've just promised someone that of _course_ you can help them rebuild their engine if they'll guarantee you safe passage out of Pakistan, and you have exactly two hours before the offer runs out.

He dabbled. He was a quick study. He'd never really found anything that he couldn't learn how to do. Although Hetty would beg to differ.

She'd never thought he was particularly good at stand-up. But that was kind of a matter of opinion.


	30. Damage

**Damage**

He was damaged. He freely admitted it. You couldn't have a childhood like his and not be. He'd never known a single kid who came out of the foster care system who went on to a life that wasn't at least occasionally haunted by what happened or what didn't happen or what could have happened.

He did, however, count himself among the lucky ones.

He'd seldom had truly bad experiences. Sure … there were the indifferent foster parents who were just taking in kids for the money. And there were the stricter-than-strict foster parents who did not, in any way, shape or form, "spare the rod". He'd had his share of beatings – at the hands of both kids and adults – but nothing that scarred him forever. Nothing he couldn't or wouldn't get past.

And he'd had some really wonderful experiences. The three months with the Rostoff's, for example, where he really felt like a part of the family. That was one home he really hated to leave. And there were other foster homes that he liked and felt at home in and missed when it was time to move on. He'd had foster fathers who took him fishing and taught him to pitch. He'd had foster mothers who spoiled him and who he had crushes on. He'd had foster brothers and sisters who made him laugh and had his back and kept his secrets.

He learned a lot about how to treat people and how not to treat people. Skills he subsequently honed in the military and in Special Ops and in the CIA and everywhere else.

He still got it wrong sometimes, even though he had more people to fall back on now. And he was still damaged. He didn't mind, though. It was just part of who he was. He saw it as an asset.

Hetty had said it best.

"Sometimes damaged goods can actually be more valuable because of their unique qualities."


	31. Miami

**Miami**

It had not been a soft landing.

Then again, the drop hadn't looked as big as it was. He hated to use the excuse that the sun got in their eyes, but it was the truth. That damn, bright Miami sun had been bouncing off the tops of buildings and the mirrored windows – mirrored windows in the sunshine capital of the country, what was THAT all about? – and it kind of flash-blinded them. Or, at least, that was their story.

The chase had led him and Sam to the pool deck of a sun-roofed and solar-paneled condo in South Beach, where they were pursuing a known human trafficker. They were pumped with adrenaline, having just barely escaped a shoot-out relatively unscathed. By the time they made it to the pool deck, the guy they'd been following had vanished. Moments later, they saw a flash of something through the sunroof and realized that the suspect had somehow gotten inside.

If they'd have taken a minute to look around, they'd have seen the small storage room toward the back of the deck. If they'd have checked the storage room, they'd have found a hatch to the air handler room one floor below, which in turn led to a maintenance area that led to the condo interior. But they didn't. Eric could have told them all of that too, except that Eric wasn't part of the team then.

So, in one unfortunate moment of bravado, he and Sam looked through the skylight – squinting against the brightness of the summer sun and looking down at a condo living room decorated in tile, glass and mirrors – and determined that the drop really wasn't all that far.

They were wrong.

The only consolation, as they lay in the ambulance with Aircasts stabilizing his left leg and Sam's right arm, was that it was the suspect who broke their fall.


	32. The Beach

**The Beach**

He likes the beach. Likes living at the beach. It doesn't really matter which one.

Santa Monica is okay. The Boardwalk makes it a little loud, particularly when all the radio stations get into DJ wars during Spring Break and most of summer. And the Third Street Promenade is in festival mode every single weekend during the season. But you can't deny that the Pier is a great place to meet if you need a location that's crowded and public. _Under_ the Santa Monica Pier is also a good place to make a quick, out-of-the-way contact. Pretty much anyone who hangs out under the pier is doing something they shouldn't be doing anyway, so no one pays much attention to anyone else.

Malibu is a good option. Most of the people living in Malibu are there for the waves and the views and the status. Sure, there are the touristy areas filled with people from the East Coast and the Midwest trying to make believe that they belong in "The 'Bu", but the actual beach community is tightly maintained. It's fairly obvious who belongs there and who's out of place. Once you're in as a 'regular', you've got a pretty well-established cover. You have to be careful, though, of the people who live up on the cliffs. Big money, big egos, and most of it not entirely honestly earned.

Marina del Rey is the largest marina on the west coast and the best place to be if living on a houseboat is your choice. He'd thought about that once, but decided he preferred land. The places in del Rey were a little on the seedy side, with mostly single people doing the beach bum thing. Everyone keeps to themselves, which makes it hard to know who's around you.

Venice Beach is the place to be when you really need to lose yourself in a crowd. You can be anyone in Venice Beach, from a movie star to a sand castle architect to a deposed South American dictator and no one will give you a second look. Tell someone you work for a covert segment of a military security organization and people will assume you're either a method actor working on a part or someone who did a little too much pot in high school. There is no rhyme or reason to Venice Beach. Which makes it perfect if you need to be seen but not remembered.

He likes the beach. He likes the sound of the waves, the surfer mentality, the cool ocean breezes and the impressive sunsets. He likes the odd arrangements of buildings, the odd arrangements of people, the smells of the Koji truck, and the ever-changing seasonal population.

But mostly, he likes the beach because one side is always ocean. Which means that you always have a sure way out.


	33. Names

**Names**

He could pull names out of thin air. They all could.

Most of the time they remained anonymous. "Two salesmen who got lost." "Two guys looking for a college buddy." "Government inspectors." "Real estate agent." "Jilted husband." "Angry inmate." It was quick cover. Think about the number of people you meet every day whose name you never know. We live in an anonymous society. People get suspicious when you give them too much information. No one expects you to give them your name. And not providing a name means that it's easier to keep your stories straight.

When they needed them, though, names would pop into their heads instantly. Most of the one-offs aren't even thought out.

When Kensi walked into the martial arts gym that day, she didn't know she was 'Tracy' until she introduced herself. He didn't become 'Gordo' until he walked into the house looking for the Marine's kid brother. They would just start talking, and names would pop out.

Some names roll off the tongue. They just feel right for the person you're trying to be and the audience you're being them for.

Some names are mistakes. 'Ernie' was a mistake.

But even with the rare misfire, they were still good at it. He'd never used the same name twice. He was always able to instantly pull a name out of nowhere when it was called for.

In fact, the only name he'd never been able to pull out of thin air was his own.


	34. Communication

**Communication**

He doesn't Facebook. He doesn't IM. He doesn't Tweet.

Tweeting is too public and too limiting. It's virtually impossible to relay actual intel when you're limited to 140 characters. Seriously … you could tweet all day and still not get the answers you want. Not to mention that tweets hold no emotion. Try being angry or urgent or sarcastic in a tweet. It takes all the fun out of communication.

IMing never really seemed efficient. It's too labor intensive. Trying to type something intelligible on that tiny little telephone keypad is impossible, particularly if you're … say … running. Like, from a bomb or something. If someone wants to reach him, they can call. If he needs to reach someone else, he can call. You can relay a lot more information in a 15-second phone call than you can in 15 seconds of IMing. Unless, of course, you're one of those freaky kids who sends 1400 messages a day and can do 100 characters a minute. He preferred speed dial and a quick and concise spoken message. Your message gets through faster, and you don't have to worry about transmitting "Need backup NOT" when you really mean "Need backup NOW". That one little letter makes a difference.

Not using Facebook is kind of a given. It's all fine, well and good for Eric to collect 'friends' and update them on a daily basis, but that was Eric. It wasn't him. And really … as a perpetually undercover special agent with 187 different identities, not only would Facebook seriously compromise his cover, keeping up would be exhausting!

Yup. Give him a regular old phone any day. (Well ... a regular old phone with the ability to take, send and receive photos, maintain a contact list, act as a GPS, send the occasional text and transmit emergency signals).

He wasn't a caveman, after all.


	35. Wardrobe

**Wardrobe**

They say clothes make the man. He believed that, at least as it related to undercover work. Every single identity he had came with a very specific look. It was part of the cover.

He had a varied wardrobe in storage. Designer label suits, thrift shop hoodies, dozens of pairs of jeans in every color and price range. He had a $10,000 Viconya suit that was made specifically for him in Rio during a counterfeiting sting. He'd had six fittings and spent four hours shopping for the right tie and shoes. And he had a pair of $2 no-name denim pants that had come from a Salvation Army store in San Francisco when he was trying to infiltrate a human trafficking ring that preyed on poverty-level laborers. They were too big and too wide and not nearly warm enough for the cool mornings working construction in the Bayview District. But both the suit and the pants were exactly what they needed to be.

There was an entire warehouse somewhere that held wardrobe options for him and everyone on his team. According to Hetty, they had more garments in their wardrobe facility than the top three movie studios in Hollywood combined.

During some missions, he changed clothes a dozen times. During others, never. But at the end, he always returned everything – in whatever state – to be logged in, cleaned, repaired and made ready for the next time. Except once.

It was a particularly soft and supple black leather jacket that he'd first worn during a fact-finding mission in Moscow. He'd grabbed it on the fly when his contact changed the meeting location from indoors to outdoors, and he had never returned it to the rack. It had been new at the time, and not yet logged in. He's had it for six years.

Every time he wears it, Hetty always looks at him a little suspiciously. But she's never said a thing.


	36. Memories

**Memories**

Memories were interesting things.

He loved hearing about Hetty's memories. Long-past cases in exotic locales. Long-past liaisons with the famous and infamous. Hetty's memories were a nine-volume series of memoirs waiting to happen.

He tended to tune out Sam's memories because Sam's memories were almost always about things _he'd_ done wrong. "Remember that time in Mexico when you used the wrong alias?" or "Remember what happened when you forgot to duck at the pier?" Sam's memories were ways that Sam reminded him of missions gone wrong or decisions he shouldn't have made or times he should have listened to Sam. Sam enjoyed remembering a little too much.

Of course, some of Sam's memories were darker. Moe … Dom … Afghanistan … Sarajevo. He could always tell when Sam went to those places. And it was his job to get Sam out of the past and back into the present.

Now … if you wanted someone who could tell you exactly what each individual memory meant – in great detail – that was Nate. Nate could dissect a snippet of a hint of a memory of a ride on a carousel when you were three and turn it into a 27-page psychological report that led to 14 hours of debriefs and discussions. Nate was scary that way.

His memories, though. Those were different. He'd created so many covers for himself. There were so many past lives he had to remember besides his own. It was hard to keep track. He wasn't always sure what was a true memory and what was something that he so badly _wanted _to remember that he'd talked himself into it.

He'd figure it out eventually. He just hoped that when he did, he'd find that the memories he was looking for were actually worth remembering.


	37. Beer & Mustard

**Beer & Mustard**

They'd opened Brandon Valdivia's fridge and found beer & mustard. "Sure you don't live here, G?", Sam had said. But Sam might be just a little surprised to find out what he did have in his fridge.

He wasn't a bad cook. He could make all of the normal "guy stuff" – scrambled eggs, burgers, chili, nachos. But it didn't end there. The scrambled eggs were usually topped with chives and speckled with goat cheese. The burgers were kobe beef, served with sautéed onions, and he knew exactly how long to grill them for a perfect medium rare. The chili was spicy and meaty and populated with three kinds of beans and fresh jalapeños from the Farmers Market. And the nachos were made with homemade tortilla chips, his own cheese mixture, and tomatoes that he occasionally grew himself in whatever backyard or patio he had.

He'd picked up his cooking skills during a five-month undercover op in Texas. He was working with Immigration to identify a quartet of Air Force officers at Lackland who were ferrying illegal aliens (and drugs) across the Texas / Mexico border. He'd been brought in as a prep chef at a dive restaurant close to the base, where he'd managed to befriend all of the officers in question as well as learn how to make a respectable order of hot wings and a damn fine steak sandwich.

His fridge was sparsely stocked, since he never really knew when he'd be leaving on assignment or moving out. But it was stocked. Fresh fruit and vegetables, hand-cut beef, some embarrassingly gourmet cheeses … **and** beer and mustard.

A local microbrew and whole-grain mustard from the deli down the street. But beer and mustard just the same.


	38. Survival

**Survival**

He was a survivor. Everyone said so.

Sam.

Hetty.

Nate.

Vance.

Even Kort said it once, after a particularly harrowing shoot-out somewhere in Kyrgyzstan. "You're a bloody survivor," Kort had said, sounding angry and a little bit disappointed. As if Kort was pissed at him for actually coming out of the mission alive. But he always came out alive.

Out of every foster home, new school, military exercise and undercover mission. Out of every bar brawl, argument, debriefing and relationship. He didn't necessarily emerge unscathed, but he survived.

He survived being shot five times on a street corner in Venice Beach, much to Stanhope's dismay and Kolcheck's surprise. He survived the Army, Special Ops, the CIA, the DEA and Gibbs.

It wasn't hard, really. You just had to want it. Survival was more about will than anything. Luck had something to do with it, certainly; and skill. But mostly it was just determination and stubbornness.

The mission he was on right now – the one focused on finding out about his past, his family – he knew at some point all the pieces would come together and he'd be able to fill in the blanks of his life. For better or for worse. People kept asking him what he'd do when he solved all the mysteries. How he would handle it.

He figured that he'd do what he always did. Survive.


	39. The Shooting Range

**The Shooting Range**

He liked the shooting range. It was a great place to work things out. If you were angry or frustrated or confused, you could work it out on the range.

You had to pay attention on the shooting range. You had to wipe all of the muddled thoughts out of your head and concentrate. He always felt more relaxed and more focused after a few rounds. Slamming a dozen bullets directly into a target's head or chest or … wherever … was incredibly therapeutic.

He was a good shot. Almost sniper level. He'd actually been a sniper on a couple of missions in Europe but he didn't like it. He needed to be right there, right in the middle of it, in order to pull the trigger. He had to see the other guy's eyes … read the other guy's intent … understand that firing the gun was the only chance he had of getting out alive. If he couldn't read the other guy, it was harder to take the shot. Snipers never see the other guy closely enough to know for sure.

He liked bullets. He respected them. It always amazed him how such a small object could do such massive damage. And how just the smallest hair of movement to the right or the left could mean the difference between leaving in an ambulance or leaving in a body bag.

He liked the physical act of shooting. The kick of the gun, the sound of the bullet leaving the barrel, the almost imperceptible 'zip' of the bullet ripping through air, the satisfying sound of it tearing the paper target.

Nate never really understood the appeal of the shooting range. But then, Nate had never been shot. Getting shot makes you appreciate the range a lot more. Because even though it seems obvious, getting shot really drives home the fact that bullets are a lot more enjoyable when they're moving away from you.


	40. Show Tunes

**Show Tunes**

He was serious about the show tunes. Mostly because it would be really hard for Sam to mope if there were show tunes playing in the car. There is simply no way that Sam would not sing along to a rousing chorus of "Oklahoma!" Sam may not look it, but the big guy could belt.

He liked show tunes. But then, his taste in music was pretty eclectic. Jazz, classical guitar, classic rock, country … even a smattering of pop, hip-hop, grunge and emo. There wasn't much he didn't like or couldn't take when it came to music.

Of course, different genres had different uses:

* Jazz was mellow-out music at the end of a day that was low on action and high on paperwork.

* Classical guitar was to be listened to while _doing_ paperwork.

* Opera was mostly in preparation for negotiations with Hetty. It always helped if he could walk in humming a snippet of some opera she loved but thought he'd never heard of.

* Grunge was when he was mad at the world – including himself. Most often himself.

* Country was for road trips.

* Blues was when he was just a little bit drunk and not at all tired and wanted to just lie there and bask in the predictable pattern of chord changes and rhyming patterns.

* Classic rock was for using up the adrenaline that was left over after an intense op that included either a fight, an explosion, a chase … or all three. He listened to a lot of classic rock.

* And show tunes? Those were for annoying Sam. Until Sam started to sing along. Then … they were just for fun.

All of this music, woven together, had become the fabric of his life.

And really … it should come as no surprise that so many genres of music fit into his world or that he so easily adapted to so many different styles. He was, after all, so many different people.


	41. Sleeping In

**Sleeping In**

He occasionally slept in. It wasn't a common occurrence, but it happened. There were days where getting out of bed was neither the attractive nor preferred option. Days where he knew he was behind in his paperwork. Days where he was sore from a work-out or a run or a fight. Days where he knew he had another session with Nate designed to release any left-over demons from being shot. Or finding out he had a sister. Or spending so much time being someone else. It's not that he didn't appreciate Nate's interest or that he didn't understand the need for the discussion. It's just that sometimes turning over and going back to sleep was simply the better choice.

People always assumed that he had insomnia, but he didn't. He didn't sleep a lot, but he did sleep. He could get by on less sleep than anyone he knew. Give him 20 minutes of quality shut-eye and he could go for 14 hours before he felt tired. It gave him an advantage. When other people were losing motor skills to fatigue, he was just getting his second wind.

People also assumed he had nightmares. Again … no. He should have, he supposed. Nightmares of harrowing war scenarios or scary foster fathers approaching with belts. But he actually slept pretty soundly. He'd learned to sleep just about anywhere when he was in Eastern Europe and South America. He could sleep on a bumpy bus careening along a mountainside or in the back of an air transport surrounded by nuclear weapons. Once he closed his eyes and set his mind to falling asleep, he did.

The difference lately was that he was dreaming more. His recurring dream of the Russian circus troupe had been replaced months ago by dreams of Dom as a captive and then, shortly after, with dreams of the mysterious man with the camera. The dreams themselves didn't bother him, really. It was that they always ended the same way. The circus was always confusing; Dom always died; the man with the camera always disappeared.

Which was why, for him, sleep was just simply overrated. He had enough mysteries to deal with when he was awake. He didn't need any more.


	42. The Climbing Wall

**The Climbing Wall**

All evidence to the contrary, he liked the climbing wall. And he _could _get to the top. In fact, it was well documented that he could get to the top faster than anyone else. Faster than Hetty or Sam, Renko or Deeks. He could even get to the top faster than Kensi, and she could scurry up that wall like a spider.

He'd always been a climber. Jungle gyms, trees, walls, rock formations. He clearly remembered the first time he'd scrambled up the side of one of his foster homes and onto the roof. He got some traction from a trellis and a foothold on a piece of broken siding. He'd grabbed the gutter and pulled himself up and was suddenly on top of the world. Or, at least, the world as he knew it at that moment.

He'd been trying to escape a foster brother who delighted in stuffing him into waste baskets and toilets, and a foster sister who enjoyed treating him as a personal slave. He'd spent an hour on the roof – in total, absolute, wonderful peace – until his foster parents came home and yelled for him to "Get down off that roof or ELSE!" He'd obediently climbed back down, after which he was punished so harshly that he'd always wondered what the "or ELSE" would have been if he'd have stayed up there.

He'd had his share of missions that required climbing. Sometimes up the sides of buildings to unseen perches or secret entryways, but mostly just basic mountain climbing. He'd been stuck once on the side of Mount Berbeneska, the second highest mountain in the Carpathian range in Ukraine. He'd broken an ankle, suffered a minor concussion and ended up with a four-inch gash on his cheek when the line slipped from Gibbs' grasp, sending them both tumbling down fifty meters before they stopped. They were stuck on the side of that peak for 14 hours until rescue. Gibbs still owed him for that one.

He'd climbed mountains in New Zealand and Wyoming, Peru and Malaysia. One time he'd made it all the way to the top of a mountain in the Alps only to discover that he'd climbed the wrong one. But he'd learned how to yodel that trip, so he considered it a wash.

He knew how to climb. But sometimes it was deciding not to get to the top that made the difference. Choosing not to summit could save your life.

He could beat Hetty to the top of the climbing wall. He knew it. She knew it.

And that was really all that mattered.


	43. Trust

**Trust**

_"I can't trust anybody who withholds information about my past – my life."_

_"And yet … you trust Hetty."_

That one had hit him hard. Flat out, full in the chest. Like taking a bullet while wearing a Kevlar vest.

It was true. He did trust Hetty. He always had. And, clearly, she'd been hiding his past from him since the moment they met.

But he didn't trust Hunter. He hadn't since the day she'd arrived.

Hetty always seemed to have a good reason. She hid things from you in a way that made you think it truly was for your own good. She'd tell you when you needed to know. When you were ready.

With Hunter it was different. It was defensive. Almost devious. It was like the kid in 4th grade who wrote notes about him. The kid – Evan … that was his name – Evan would write stuff about Callen and then fold the notes up into tight, tight little triangles and wedge them into places that Callen could see, but not reach. He'd taunt Callen with the fact that all those notes were up there – teasing, spiteful 4th-grade-cruel writings about Callen not having a family or a name or a father to bring him to the father-son baseball game.

It was like that with Hunter. She had information, but she guarded it like a miser – teasing him with its presence, but wedging it into a place he could not reach.

He thought back to 4th grade and Evan and his cruel little notes. And he remembered the day that he'd finally gotten brave enough to scramble up to the top of the bulletin board and work one of those triangular missives out of its hiding place. He'd taken the note and stuffed it in his pocket until lunch time, when he could disappear into a corner and see what Evan had written. When the moment finally came, he unfolded the paper and found … nothing. Evan hadn't written anything. Callen had gone from note to note then, dislodging every one out of the corners and crevices they'd taunted him from. They were all blank.

And suddenly Callen realized that Hunter was the same. She teased him with information, but had none. She'd let him believe that the Comescu laptop held the key to his past, but there was nothing there. It was something she did to keep him off balance. She wanted – needed – him to be angry and on edge and just a little distracted. She'd been playing him. And doing it damn well.

As for Hetty – he'd wait. She'd earned his loyalty. But he would get the answers he was seeking.

You could trust him on that.


	44. Partners

**Partners**

You know … he was pretty over that whole, "I'll be the bad partner who turns on you" scenario that they'd been using for five years. It's not that it didn't work, but he was ALWAYS on the receiving end.

It was totally understandable. Any bad guy worth his salt would look at Callen and Sam and know that it was Sam who would end up being the bad ass. Callen played "vulnerable", "naïve" and "gullible" a lot better. It was pretty simple for someone to believe that Sam could have totally tricked Callen into some evil plot, but not at all easy for someone to believe the vice-versa of that. And seriously … Sam had arms the size of tree trunks. He was definitely the bad ass.

But still … it was getting old.

Honestly, with Sam playing "dirty cop", Callen had suffered more concussions than a major league quarterback.

In order to make it work, Callen always had to take a punch or six. One time, Sam had had to shoot him to make it believable. Being the excellent marksman that he is, Sam was able to shoot Callen in a place that really did him no harm in the long run, but it kind of hurt at the time, and Sam didn't seem all that remorseful.

Thankfully, Hetty had reminded Sam that, "harmless" gunshot or not, having any agent at less than 100% due to an on-the-job injury was not preferred, particularly when the agent in question was on injured reserve due to _friendly_ fire. That had wiped the grin off Sam's face.

Callen often thought about what it would be like when he got to be the bad cop and Sam had to be the one taking the punches.

He didn't actually think that day would come, but a guy can dream.


	45. Kensi

**Kensi**

Suddenly, he wasn't sure about Kensi.

It wasn't that she'd gone off alone, all rogue and lone wolf. They'd all done that at some point or another for some reason or another. Everyone had done it except Eric and Nell – and he wasn't all that sure about Nell. That wasn't it.

It wasn't that she had joined NCIS with a motive that was unrelated to simply defending the country against enemies, foreign and domestic. She'd joined in order to get access to information and to find out what happened to her father. He could give her a pass on that too. Although he hadn't joined NCIS _specifically_ to find out about his past, he had used their resources from time to time to help him turn over a stone or two. That wasn't it either.

And it wasn't that she had totally left him – her team leader – out of the loop of all of this from the start, hiding facts about drives to Pendleton and trips to Hawaii and letting him trust her when she was off doing who knows what damage to her cover story and possibly the agency's. Even that wasn't what made him wary.

The thing that he just couldn't understand about Kensi was her mother. She had a mother. A mother who was practically within walking distance from where they all worked. A mother who had loved her and raised her and been part of her life until Kensi walked away. She had walked away and shut her mother out.

He had been searching most of his life to just find out what his mother's name was. To find out who she was. To know if she had loved him at all.

Kensi had had all of that, and she threw it away.

Suddenly, he wasn't sure about Kensi.


	46. Spycraft

**Spycraft**

He loved spycraft. And truth be told, he was really an Old School kind of guy. He appreciated all of the gadgets and gizmos and tech and toys that deep undercover invisible operatives like him get to use. And he totally understood that they'd never be able to do their jobs as quickly or effectively without all of that. But for him, it was more about decoder rings than iPhones.

It was Gibbs' fault, really. Gibbs had an aversion to high-tech anything. Gibbs didn't mind other people using whatever equipment was at their disposal to help nail the bad guy, but Callen knew from experience that Gibbs was more MacGyver than McGee. Every mission he'd done with Gibbs always ended up with them depending on some low-tech solution – like the time in the mountains of Eastern Europe, when they had to blow their way through an impenetrable detention cell by rubbing two sticks together to cause a spark. Turns out that they'd remembered to bring the C4 and forgotten to bring the matches.

And even though Hetty spent a large amount of her day purchasing items for, and hiring people to run, the state-of-the-state-of-the-art equipment in the Ops Center, he knew she was more Old School than New, thanks to her decades of involvement in (he hoped) America's side of the Cold War. He was absolutely certain that Hetty had at least one lipstick case that could shoot tear gas and at least one pair of shoes with a hidden gun compartment. And he didn't even want to think of what kind of spycraft was contained in all those brooches she wore.

The bottom line, though, was that in a pinch, a bobby pin or paper clip could get you a lot farther than the new Windows platform on an iPad. Because try as he might, he'd never been able to find an app that could help him escape from handcuffs or a place in the cloud that could pick a lock.

But give him a good decoder ring with a secret compartment and he was home free.


	47. The Punching Bag

**The Punching Bag**

He remembers when the punching bag was new. The OSP group was smaller then, and they barely had the room to put in a half-dozen desks, much less a gym. But Hetty had insisted on it. And she'd outfitted it with the basics – weight machines, treadmills, pull-up bars and the punching bag. They'd all made fun of her when she brought it in. "We get enough practice punching things in the field," they'd laughed. But she stood her ground.

They'd had the punching bag at least a decade. Before they moved into the spacious and equipped offices they had now. Before he'd nearly been assassinated. Before he and Sam were partners. Before Dom and Hunter and Renko.

Hetty had tried to replace the bag a few times with a new one, but no one would let her. They just kept patching it up, and it just kept taking all the punishment they gave it.

The bag took a lot of hits for Dom and Hunter and Renko.

Every bad case, rotten outcome, dead agent, dead end, and released-for-lack-of-evidence bad guy is in that bag. All the arguments, anger, sadness, frustration, worry and doubt of the job were in that bag. All of it. Held together with multiple layers of grey duct tape.

Hetty never doubted it would work … that the punching bag would become an important tool in their arsenal. He had asked her once why she'd made that choice. There were, after all, lots of other ways to handle the emotions of their job, and a punching bag was pretty low tech … very old school.

She'd paused to consider his question, then smiled that little half-smile of hers and said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "It is, Mr. Callen, to keep you all from punching each other."


	48. Resolutions

**Resolutions**

He had never really made a New Year's resolution. Not a real one anyway.

Hetty would make him promise that he'd eat better or get more sleep or finish his paperwork on time. "So resolved," he'd say with a smile, not really meaning it.

Sam would make him swear to work out more regularly or to spend less time alone and to find some woman he could have a real relationship with. "So resolved," he'd say with a smile, not really meaning it.

He liked resolutions because no one really ever expected you to keep them.

He was uncertain about the whole "new year" thing. He got the concept, of course – January 1, start of the calendar, new year, etc. But really … it was just another day. The only New Year he could really remember acknowledging was the year 2000, when he was part of an inter-agency task force formed to deal with the fallout of Y2K. He'd spent the day with a couple of dozen other lone wolf types sitting in a bunker going over a multitude of disaster scenarios and waiting for the phone to ring. It never did, and life went on as normal, three years of work wasted.

Recently, though, he'd found himself reflecting a bit more on the passage of time … the turning of the year. It came with age, he supposed. Or experience. Every year you make it out alive in his business automatically qualifies as "a good year", even if you have to kill a few people a week to get there.

But this year, he found himself looking back on the friends and colleagues who hadn't made it to December 31. He looked back at the cases he'd solved, the bad guys he'd caught, and the ones he'd missed. He felt tired, then, and older.

He reached in front of him to pick up a heavy cut crystal glass sparkling with two fingers of very fine aged Scotch. And he supposed he should follow everyone's advice and cut himself a break ... not take it so personally. He sighed, smiled, raised his glass, and spoke as convincingly as he could.

"So resolved."


	49. Secrets

**Secrets**

Secrets are tricky things. In his job, they're a necessary evil, but you have to know how to separate them out from lies.

A lie is him telling someone, "My name is Todd and I work for a software company". A secret is that he works for OSP. Lies can be managed; secrets are much more delicate.

Back when he'd met Sam and they traded backgrounds, he never imagined that there would ever be a situation where he'd have to share Sam's secret with the rest of the team. Sam was married … his wife was an agent (and assassin). No big deal. They worked in a very weird world where stuff like that wasn't nearly as unbelievable or uncommon as you'd think. After all, he was the last remaining member of a family against which another family had maintained a blood feud for generations, and no one knew his first name. :: yawn ::

No … the problem wasn't in the secrets. It was in the telling. A situation that exposed a secret was the worst kind of thing. Because once a secret is out, it's out – and suddenly everything changes.

With a lie, people hear it, maybe repeat it, but it's just something that you manage like you do any other bit of data. With a secret, you have to keep it. You can't share, you don't know who else knows. Any slip of the tongue brings questions and suspicion. And that can get you killed.

He wasn't sure how Sam was going to contain his secret, now that it was out. But he knew Sam would. It was the rest of the team he was worried about. Because once one person's secret is out there, everyone else starts worrying about theirs.

Right now, the only secret he wanted to know was how Hetty managed it all. Because he had no idea.


	50. Paris

**Paris**

Paris was a beautiful city. He'd always thought so. It was the only city he'd ever been to where he felt at home the minute he got there.

Usually, when he arrived in a city, it took him a while to get his bearings. He had to spend some time with maps or a GPS, walking the streets, figuring out the parts of the city that would provide the safest cover or the most accessible resources or the best place to lay low. But not Paris. He walked into the middle of the city and felt instantly at ease.

Paris felt like something he'd been waiting for. And it had seemed to be waiting for him too. As if it was just sitting there – life going on day to day – waiting for the moment he'd arrive and say hello.

He felt safe in Paris, even though he was almost always in danger when he was there. There was always a mission … always something that had to be accomplished. But that was okay. It made Paris seem more exciting. And it made it seem like they had something in common.

Yes, Paris was beautiful.

Sam's voice popped Callen out of his reverie and back to the car he and Sam were sitting in, at a stakeout in San Bernadino. Definitely NOT Paris.

"Where you been, G?" Sam said. "Your body may be here, but your mind is definitely in another zip code." And then Sam asked him what he was thinking about.

"Paris," he replied.

"The city?" Sam asked. "Or the girl?"

Callen turned to look back out the window.

"I don't know yet."


	51. Complicated

**Complicated**

If he had a dollar for every time someone told him "It's complicated", he'd be a very wealthy man.

"Why don't I have a mom and a dad?" he'd asked over and over again.

"It's complicated."

"Why do I have to leave this foster home?" he'd asked more than once.

"It's complicated."

"Why don't have I have a first name?"

"Why am I stuck in Russia?"

"Why can't you just send a chopper and pull me out?"

"Why does this Romanian family want to kill me?"

"It's complicated."

It was everyone's favorite stock answer. Whenever he asked a question that someone didn't want to (or couldn't) answer, they'd always default to "It's complicated."

But that was okay. He could do complicated. Complicated was fine.

Complicated meant that there were a lot of moving parts. And while that meant that there were a lot of things that could go wrong, it also meant that there would be a lot of ways to solve the problem. And it meant that people would have spent a lot more time on a plan. There was nothing worse than hearing a four-star general lean back in his creaky leather chair and say, "Don't worry boys – this one'll be easy."

It was when things got easy that you had to worry.

Easy meant that you'd underestimate your opponent. That you'd go in without a Plan B. You'd think it was going to be no worries, and then suddenly you'd be stuck behind enemy lines with nothing but a knife and a dead radio and six hours to make it out before you'd find yourself staring down the business end of an AK-47 trying to answer questions in rusty Czech.

Of course, that was work. Relationships were different. Complicated was harder to define when romance and sex were concerned. In fact, complicated was at a whole new LEVEL when romance and sex …

"Mr. Callen – I am talking to you," Hetty said.

G looked up and saw his team watching him in confusion, with the NCIS: Red Team just as confused via video link.

"Are you alright, Mr. Callen?" Hetty asked, looking a bit concerned.

He glanced at Special Agent Summerskill up on the screen and then over at Hetty.

"It's complicated."


	52. Playing Catch

**Playing Catch**

Playing catch was an iconic part of nearly every kid's childhood. Even his. He can clearly remember the first time anyone ever handed him a baseball mitt and asked him to "have a catch".

He'd just been placed in his seventh foster home. Lucky number seven. And it WAS lucky. It was a great family with a mom and a dad and three daughters – all under the age of ten and all totally obsessed by being princesses. The family had specifically asked to foster a boy, and he was happy to oblige.

He was just about ten years old himself the day he showed up on the doorstep. The family welcomed him warmly and got him settled. After eating hamburgers and hotdogs in the backyard, the girls all went in to get away from the bugs, and his foster dad pulled out a couple of mitts and a baseball.

"Do you want to have a catch?" the dad had asked him.

He'd shrugged and looked at the glove, not quite knowing what to do.

The dad had laughed and motioned him over, then showed him how to break the glove in and fit it to his hand. The glove was way too big. The dad – apparently as unfamiliar with being a father to a boy as Callen was being a son to a dad – had gotten an adult glove instead of a child's glove. But the two of them worked on softening it up until it fit well enough.

"You'll grow into it," he remembers the dad telling him.

For the next two hours – and for nearly every warm night during that summer he spent with the family – the two played catch. He was pretty bad at first, but his foster dad was patient. They eventually fell into an easy rhythm.

He would spend his summer days doing chores and enduring tea parties with his foster sisters, making sure that all of his "to do's" were checked off before his foster father came home from work. Then as soon as supper was over, the two would be out in the backyard, tossing the ball back and forth. They practiced groundballs and pop flies and fast balls. He got pretty good.

One Saturday afternoon, his foster father took him to a game. Minor league, and not really a very good game, but for a ten-year-old boy who was just discovering baseball, it was heaven. Three weeks later, the dad got a new job and the family had to move.

He remembers that last night, him and the foster dad tossing the ball in the backyard until it was way past his bedtime and too dark to see. As he was packing up the next day to go back to the group home, the dad came into his room and gave him the glove and ball as a good-bye present.

Callen still had them.


	53. Kids

**Kids**

He likes kids.

Obviously, he _loves_ Sam's kids … because he's Uncle Callen to them, and part of the family.

But he pretty much likes all kids.

Kids are fearless. Brave. Funny. Loyal. And brutally honest.

They're also innocent. Trusting. And in need of protection.

He's always considered it part of his job to make sure that kids could have childhoods. Maybe because he didn't really get one. But it's the one thing that keeps him fighting the good fight and taking down the bad guys. He wants kids to be safe and to grow up happy. Kids deserve to be able to go to school or to a ball game or to a movie and not have to worry about coming home in a body bag.

He might look on in envy when he sees kids who have normal, well-adjusted childhoods with loving parents and circles of best friends. And he might find himself drawn a little more to kids who are struggling with a single parent or a rough upbringing or being a loner at school.

The bottom line, though, is that he just likes kids.

But babysitting? That's something different altogether.


	54. Subways

**Subways**

He's always hated taking the subway.

It really had nothing to do with this latest close call, where he'd have been turned into a "Flat Callen" had Sam not been able to pull him to safety at literally the last second. It wasn't the first close call he'd had in a subway station, and he assumed it wouldn't be his last. That wasn't the reason.

He hated taking the subway because once you got on the train, you were trapped. You could wander around the station, people-watch at the turnstiles, listen to street musicians on the platform take advantage of the acoustics … all of that was perfectly safe. There were ways to escape … methods of egress … crowds to get lost in. But once you got on the train, you had to be watchful. Vigilant. Lucky.

He liked the metro in Tokyo. That one was safe … clean … well patrolled. Really really crowded on the trains, but the stations and platforms were like new. He'd gotten stuck in Shimbashi once during a bad storm, when the trains were single-tracking due to damage up the line. There were over 400 people stuck on the platform for over three hours that night and you'd have thought Disney was managing the queues, it was so orderly.

He didn't like New York subways. Too dark and dirty – at least in the areas he tended to frequent. He'd run onto a car down in Alphabet City once, and gratefully dropped into an open seat, exhausted after a nearly two-mile getaway run that would have gotten him serious parkour points at the X Games if either of those things had been invented at that point. As he sat, he could slowly feel something seeping into his pants from the seat. He jumped up and looked down and saw a distinct puddle … of what, he wasn't sure. But he knew it wasn't his. He never wore those pants again. He might have burned them.

Russian subways were the worst. He'd been stabbed twice on Russian subways – once by some friend of an enemy who he hadn't noticed was following him, and once by accident when he got between two very angry black market operators while trying to get away from one very angry double agent. The second time was just a nick, and he'd been able to parlay it into a disappearing act that left the double agent standing alone on an empty train. But the first time was swift and clean and with a knife so sharp that he didn't realize he'd even been stabbed until the car started to empty and a woman near him screamed at the blood.

He wasn't fond of Russian hospitals either.


End file.
